


Postlude

by AstroLass



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Fix-It, Happy Ending, It's requited, M/M, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Obligatory 15.19 Coda, alternate series finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27607610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroLass/pseuds/AstroLass
Summary: Why didn't Jack bring Castiel back immediately at the end of 5.19, along with everyone else?   Here's my theory.  (Jack does bring him back, of course, because no unhappy endings in 2020! and because Dean and Cas deserve it).  And if you need to, call this the ending and pretend 15.20 never happened.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 107





	Postlude

Some nights Dean can’t sleep anywhere but in the back seat of the Impala. On the nights when Sam is staying with Eileen – which are getting more and more frequent as the weeks go by – the silence of being alone in the bunker is too heavy, too painful, for him to sleep. The silence of the place has heft and weight and it presses down on him so hard that he can barely breathe. Nothing makes it better, not his music, not his movies, not porn, not booze. It’s the painful silence of knowing that he’s never going to hear Cas’s voice again. It’s the oppressive weight of knowing what they could have had, but never did, because both of them were so sure the other one couldn’t ever feel the same way that they never spoke up. In the Impala, leaning his back into the door, the armrest digging in his lower back, folding his arms and legs just so to fit, the silence and the loneliness seem a little smaller, a little more manageable, a little less likely to break him.

As the phone calls and text messages came in from everyone responding to their frantic calls, reassuring Sam and Dean that they were all right, Dean kept hoping for the one call that never came. After all, how could Jack, who called Cas “father,” leave Cas in the Empty? But it had been a month now, and still no “Hello Dean” rumbling through the halls of the bunker or on the other end of the phone.

Tonight is one of the bad nights. Even the familiar embrace of his Baby isn’t comforting tonight. He does what he does when everything else fails, when there’s nothing else he can do to stop his heart from shattering: he drives. He doesn’t think about where he’s going until he realizes he’s retracing the drive he took with Jack when the kid was sick and failing and he wanted to give him a day of happiness. It’s a drive with a lot of open road and no tree cover, no intrusive street lighting, and he can see all the stars spread out in the night sky ahead of him and behind him. That makes Dean think of Cas again and he’s crying before he even realizes he’s doing it. This has been coming on so long, there’s no point in fighting it anymore, so he pulls over and lets it happen.

“Dammit, Cas, I’m sorry, I’m so so damn sorry, I shoulda said it, I shoulda been braver, I shoulda opened my mouth and not just stood there like a goddamn idiot.” He’s babbling now, his forehead against the steering wheel, his hands shaking with the desire to hit something but knowing that the only thing here that deserves a beating is him, for not letting Cas know in that last horrible moment that he loved him too. 

“Just one more minute. I needed just one more minute to make my stupid brain work. I’d give anything for just one more minute with him.” He’s not sure who he’s talking to, Jack has already said he’s not going to answer prayers, but he’d beg on his knees to anyone who’d listen for the chance to make it right.

He doesn’t notice at first when a light drops from the sky to the ground. When he finally does notice, the soft golden light has already started forming into Jack’s shape, hand raised in his wonderful goofy greeting. Dean is out of the car in an instant, throwing himself to hug the kid, but there’s nothing there but air. He is afraid for a moment that it’s all a hallucination, that he’s finally cracked, but then Jack softly says, “Hello.”

“Jack,” he croaks, his voice rough and broken, but he refuses to worry about that now. “You heard me.”

“I’ll always hear you, Dean. You and Sam both. I won’t always answer, but I will always hear you because you’re part of me.” Jack sounds serene. Godhood or whatever this is he’s doing now suits him.

Before Dean can even think about it, he’s on his knees, doing what he swore he’d do if he was ever given the chance. “You gotta bring Cas back, Jack. Please bring him back. I need him back.”

“I don’t know if I should. Castiel is asleep. He’s at peace after all his work.”

The expression on Jack’s face is so far beyond Dean’s ability to read that he doesn’t even try. “Jack, please. I need him. I can’t do this without him.”

“Why?”

It’s not the response he expected. Jack knows, doesn’t he? Everyone seemed to know except him and Cas. Jack tilts his head, Cas-like, and that starts Dean’s tears flowing again. “I love him. I never told him because I was so sure that I didn’t deserve him, so sure that he didn’t – he couldn’t – love me back. And then when he finally said it, it was all too much. I was too, I dunno, overwhelmed, I wasn’t able to get the words out, and he got taken thinking that I didn’t love him back.” He has to stop to catch his breath, his chest aching with the tears and with the confession of how badly he screwed things up. “I need him to know it wasn’t just him. Please. Please. If you can’t or won’t bring him back, just make sure he knows that I loved him too.”

“You should tell him yourself.” Jack’s smile is luminous.

“Hello Dean.” After decades of hunting and assorted abuse, his knees shouldn’t let him stand up that fast, but for a miracle they do, and Dean’s on his feet, spinning around to face the source of the most beautiful two words he’s ever heard in his life. Cas is _there_ , rumpled and solid and gorgeous. “Jack says you needed to tell me something,” Cas says, sounding so hopeful it is almost painful.

Dean closes the distance between them in a heartbeat and pulls Cas into a ferocious embrace that takes the air out of both of them. At first, the only word Dean can choke out is Cas’s name, repeating it over and over as he holds Cas tight, reassuring himself that this is real and not a hallucination or a vision or the last conscious gasp of his mind as he slips into an alcoholic stupor. When he finally catches his breath, Dean pulls back only far enough to be able to look Cas in the eyes, those beautiful blue eyes, filled now with an emotion Dean had spent years telling himself couldn’t possibly be directed at _him_. 

Dean knows that Cas deserves poetry. He deserves a song. But Cas made the mistake of falling in love with a guy who can’t do any of that, so Dean keeps it simple. “I love you, Cas,” he says, loud and clear and looking his angel in the eyes. Then, so that there’s no mistaking his meaning, he kisses Cas with all the passion and desire that he’s been holding back for years. With no hesitation at all, Cas is kissing him back and it’s perfect.

“I’m sorry I made you wait, but I needed to be sure,” Jack says after a moment, and Dean and Cas both startle a bit, awkwardly realizing their adopted son and brand-new cosmic being is still there, watching them kiss. “I needed to be sure I wasn’t bringing Castiel back to have his heart broken. I was pretty sure, but I needed to hear you say it. I didn’t think you’d wait quite this long, of course.”

Dean laughs because it’s all he can do with the sheer joy of it all coursing through his veins. “Thank you. Thank you, Jack. Thank you so damn much.”

“Be happy together. Live a good life.” Jack raises his hand again in a farewell salute and they watch him go.

“Come home with me, angel?” Dean asks.

“Human,” Cas corrects. “But yes, love, let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> A "postlude" is a concluding piece of music. The word can also be used for a written or spoken epilogue.


End file.
